30 Nov 2003

Giving Thanks

On November 12, ZDNet UK reported that Bradley Tipp,
Microsoft’s UK National Systems Engineer, proclaimed the death of the
free software model at the Monopoly’s IT Forum in Copenhagen. Had Mr
Tipp been right, our death would have been one of the most temporary
on record. From where I sit, two weeks later at the season of
Thanksgiving in the United States, the Free World has much to be
thankful for in the year now ending, and little to fear from the year
to come.

Microsoft’s position, apparently, is that Red Hat’s decision to end
direct support for non-enterprise free software and Novell’s
acquisition of SuSE somehow validate Microsoft’s proprietary approach
and put, as the reporter summarized their view “the last nail in the
coffin of the free-software model.” I yield to no one in my respect
for Microsoft’s ability to misunderstand the software industry, but
this is richer than usual: if this is indeed the Monopoly’s current
party line, Mr Gates is entirely confused about who’s in the box and
who’s holding the hammer.

These recent industry developments are indeed significant, but their
meaning has nothing to do with the demise of freedom. Red Hat and
Novell-SuSE are both basing their business strategies on the
recognition that not only OS and application software itself, but also
primary packaging activity, are commodities now. The free software
model of community development and community support has broadened its
reach again. In addition to developing all the individual programs,
the community is now at a level of maturity at which it can assemble
the software into thousands of packages that work together smoothly,
can manage the release cycle, and the task of providing security fixes
and other patches, as rapidly and accurately as any commercial
organization, including especially Microsoft. Red Hat and SuSE can no
longer successfully add value by putting together an operating system
kernel, windowing system, desktop manager and applications suites with
compatible versioning and support for updates. Making a
“distribution” is a commodity activity: Debian, and the increasingly
large number of distros built on Debian, along with other
community-based packaging projects such as Gentoo, have convincingly
assumed the role of primary distributors of free software. What the
commercial providers will now do is build “enterprise products” on
that base, centered around the provision of comprehensive 24x7 support
and integration services.

Far from representing the death of the free software model, these
steps show that the global transformation of the software industry
that freedom initiates is building momentum. Despite the claims of
proprietary producers like Microsoft, this does not spell the end of
commercial activity, just the end of low-quality software the user
can’t understand, modify, improve, and redistrbute. High-quality
software is becoming a public utility, and as any student of economic
history can tell you, the growth of public utilities (such as canals,
roads, clean drinking water resources, public education systems) is
a source of economic growth, not an obstacle.

This relationship between public utility intellectual activity and
economic development is the reason that government adoption of the
free software model is also rapidly expanding this year. As I write,
the Brazilian Government is preparing to announce the first
government-produced free software to be released under the GPL: the
first fruits of its decision to release all publicly-produced software
under the FSF’s licenses. Where the Brazilian Government goes, the
Brazilian private sector will soon begin to follow: the world’s
eighth-largest economy is becoming a bulwark of software freedom.
Microsoft has pressed hard against this development in Brazil for two
years, ever since we began our campaign for government adoption of
free software, and it has lost. Just one more way in which the
reports of freedom’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Not, however, for lack of trying. SCO, too, in its own small way,
continues to announce that freedom’s end is just around the corner.
SCO’s CEO, Darl McBride, told an interviewer this week that “we think
the GPL is not going to make it.” His reason is that free software
is “so unfriendly to business.” Some businesses, at any
rate—those that seek to profit from free software while
simultaneously trying to destroy freedom. As its primary lawsuit
against IBM founders and its threats to sue users of free software
look increasingly untenable, SCO has launched an attack against the
Free Software Foundation. SCO is trying to use a subpoena issued as
part of its lawsuit against IBM to gain access to our confidential
records of our activities in securing compliance with GPL for the last
five years. I will have more to say about the subpoena and our
defensive activities next month.

But as I look forward from this moment, when we in the US take stock
of our blessings in the year coming to an end, I feel very grateful
indeed. With all our colleagues around the world we have had a most
successful year: the state of freedom is strong, and growing
stronger. The year to come will be a year of wonders, as the
opponents of freedom find themselves increasingly marginalized, as
programmers, users, businesses and governments around the world
continue to adopt the cause of freedom. Everywhere, and more all the
time, Free Software Matters.

This column was first published in the UK in Linux User. It is also available in PostScript and PDF formats.